Editing Humorist (section)

==Distinction from a comedian==
[[Humor]] is the quality which makes experiences provoke laughter or amusement, while [[comedy (drama)|comedy]] is a [[performing art]]. The nineteenth-century German philosopher [[Arthur Schopenhauer]] lamented the misuse of ''humor'' (a German [[loanword]] from English) to mean any type of comedy. A humorist is adept at seeing the humor in a situation or aspect of life and relating it, usually through a story; the [[comedian]] generally concentrates on jokes designed to invoke instantaneous laughter. The humorist is primarily a writer of books, newspaper or magazine articles or [[columnist|columns]], [[play (theatre)|stage]] or [[screenplay|screen]] plays, and may occasionally appear before an audience to deliver a lecture or narrate a written work. The comedian always performs for an audience, either in live performance, audio recording, radio, television, or film.<ref name=SC>{{cite web|last=Study.com|title=Humorist vs Comedian: What is the Difference?|url=https://study.com/articles/humorist_vs_comedian_what_is_the_difference.html|website=Study.com|access-date=December 8, 2017|archive-date=December 9, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171209044534/https://study.com/articles/humorist_vs_comedian_what_is_the_difference.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Phil Austin]], of the comedy group [[the Firesign Theatre]], expressed his thoughts about the difference in 1993 liner notes to the ''[[Fighting Clowns]]'' album:<ref>{{Cite AV media notes |title=Fighting Clowns |year=1993 |url=http://www.firesigntheatre.com/media/media.php?item=fc-ln |access-date=February 9, 2018 |first=Phil |last=Austin |author-link=Phil Austin |type=liner notes |archive-date=December 26, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171226220607/http://firesigntheatre.com/media/media.php?item=fc-ln |url-status=dead }}</ref>

{{Blockquote
|text=To me, there is a great difference between a humorist and a clown, and I had hoped that life for the Firesign Theatre would have led more toward the world of Mark Twain than the world of Beepo. The humorist is a happy soul; he comments from the sidelines of life, safe behind the keyboard or pen; not forced to mold his thinking to the direct response of an audience, he has indirection on his side. He has time to think. Beepo, on the other hand, takes his chances directly facing—or mooning—the audience; a buffoon, a patsy, a performer, he is out in the open and his audience, unlike a humorist's, becomes necessarily half-friend and half-enemy.}}